Lanre Issa-Onilu, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), has urged Nigerians to strategise how to survive without fuel subsidy.
President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidy on May 29, 2023, on his inauguration ground and since then, the cost of transportation has jacked up the cost of living and food inflation.
Despite pleas to rescind the decision, President Tinubu has maintained that the Federal Government will not return the subsidy.
Since August 1. there has been massive protests across the country, over the rising cost of food and hardship in the country. One of the demands of the protesters is the return of fuel subsidy.
Speaking on Sunrise Daily breakfast show, a Channels Television programme, Issa-Onilu, a former spokesman for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), said poverty will worsen if petrol subsidy is returned, as being demanded by #EndBadGovernance protesters in the last week.
“Anybody who is making a demand that subsidy removal should be brought back is making an emotional demand, not an economic demand because you have to also prove that if it is brought back, it will solve the issue of poverty; it will not, it will aggravate it”, he said on Wednesday.
“So, what we should be doing is: How do we survive in spite of the removal?’ We need to promote all the efforts of this government to ensure that we survive without that subsidy”.
He admitted the trust deficit between leaders and followers in the country due to repeated cases of broken promises over the years.
“It is difficult to talk to a people who have for several years been let down. Nigerians feel let down. The first question they ask you is: ‘Is this another promise that will not be kept?’ So, we must prove to Nigerians that this government is keeping to its promises,” Oniru stated.
In a nationwide address last Sunday, Tinubu ruled out the return of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), while urging #EndBadGovernance protesters demonstrating against economic hardship to go home.
According to him, the removal of subsidy on petrol was a painful but necessary decision he took for economic reforms.
